WHY EA/DICE flounder with Battlefield so badly and how the biggest titles get to be so popular

"The recent games in the Battlefield franchise have completely failed to implement any of the aforementioned keys to a competitive title. There has been virtually no effort from EA/DICE to try and create a competitive base or even allow one to form. EA/DICE had falsely advertised tournaments for the franchise, had a community manager/director brag about Battlefield's supposed eSports exuberance that is nonexistent, and had a lively competitive base that has been slowly but surely dwindling due to the poor decisions of the recent titles. As a result of the elimination of Conquest Small, teams that yearn to compete in the most popular form of "eSports" on Battlefield 1 are forced to implement mandates that eliminate flags on the maps that are too large for typical 8v8, 10v10 or 12v12 competition, creating a ridiculous and inconsistent playing field. As described, simply eliminating a few of the maps is not going to solve the larger problem of design at hand.

Battlefield's presence as a competitive title is hardly a moot point. Decisions from EA/DICE in Battlefield 1 and the previous several Battlefield titles have all but eliminated the major competitive platform (Conquest Small) for long standing teams in the franchise. The qualities of creating a sustainable title that other Battlefield games from years ago have had involve a cycle, one that EA/DICE has never allowed to get started in recent years. It remains to be seen if EA is going to pursue a top down approach with their newly created eSports division that will noticeably permeate Battlefield 1, but with the way the game exists presently, there is no option for the most popular competitive style."

Comments

For me when games go too heavily towards a competitive scene is the moment the alienate their core audience. Perhaps EA/ Dice have recognised this and are now focussing on the masses and their core game modes that Battlefield is famous for.

There is also the chance you just need to be patient, all good things come to those who wait.

For me when games go too heavily towards a competitive scene is the moment the alienate their core audience. Perhaps EA/ Dice have recognised this and are now focussing on the masses and their core game modes that Battlefield is famous for.

There is also the chance you just need to be patient, all good things come to those who wait.

Agreed but I don't think going the opposite way and dumbing the game down with cod snipers , random bullet spread etc is the way to go either.

For me when games go too heavily towards a competitive scene is the moment the alienate their core audience. Perhaps EA/ Dice have recognised this and are now focussing on the masses and their core game modes that Battlefield is famous for.

There is also the chance you just need to be patient, all good things come to those who wait.

Couldn't disagree more. In my post I describe CoD, Overwatch and Hearthstone who all have some of the largest competitive bases among all games with a massive "core audience". Also, the latest BF games haven't even stuck to the "core principles" of the franchise.

For me when games go too heavily towards a competitive scene is the moment the alienate their core audience. Perhaps EA/ Dice have recognised this and are now focussing on the masses and their core game modes that Battlefield is famous for.

There is also the chance you just need to be patient, all good things come to those who wait.

Agreed but I don't think going the opposite way and dumbing the game down with cod snipers , random bullet spread etc is the way to go either.

Map design is huge for how the game plays. The whole tiny doorway chokepoints through crucial points started with BF3 and got much worse in BF4, and it has been a disaster.

For me when games go too heavily towards a competitive scene is the moment the alienate their core audience. Perhaps EA/ Dice have recognised this and are now focussing on the masses and their core game modes that Battlefield is famous for.

There is also the chance you just need to be patient, all good things come to those who wait.

Couldn't disagree more. In my post I describe CoD, Overwatch and Hearthstone who all have some of the largest competitive bases among all games with a massive player base. Also, the latest BF games haven't even stuck to the "core principles" of the franchise.

CoD is actually a great example. It blew up big time after cod4/ MW2 became the premium game for MLG and has gradually slipped off its own pedestal a victim of its success. Medal of Honour is another one went down the competitive route but failed to captivate the appropriate audience and now the franchise has been put out to pasture. Meanwhile BF1 is the largest commercial success Dice have had with the franchise.

For sure a selection of the smaller competitive game modes would be nice, even if they work on this at the time of a DLC, with design features in mind for said game modes. But it cant take precedent over the core game modes that the majority play day in day out.

I think alot of the cod players have moved to battlefield 1 helping its success because cod put out a really bad game this year, next years cod could be great again and the players will move back over to cod.

The battlefield franchise has never really been nor should it ever be a "competitive" shooter. Competitive shooters are what my friends and I call Dumb Shooters. Go play CoD or Overwatch. There's actually plenty of "competitive" games out there.

The other side of this is that it is largely on the competitive community to develop things. A game is not competitive simply due to a large purse size, it can be competitive because of the community involved. The absolute best competitive game I have played was Left 4 Dead, and it was never pro even though we were just as good as any of the pro teams in other games.

Also, DICE have created a huge opportunity in that Operations would make a much better competitive mode than Conquest. A major problem with Conquest, at least for spectators, is that a team generally has to gain an advantageous position and hold it. It is a much more static game-mode, whereas Operations requires progression. If you don't keep pushing you lose.

And if they make Squad Operations then both infantry- and full-comp will be on the same page for the mode. (And of course, CQS would still be an option.)

The battlefield franchise has never really been nor should it ever be a "competitive" shooter. Competitive shooters are what my friends and I call Dumb Shooters. Go play CoD or Overwatch. There's actually plenty of "competitive" games out there.

Tall-poppy syndrome.

And what a strange leap of logic to go from Battlefield being a Smart Shooter to one which for some reason can't be competitive. I wonder what you are trying to say...

The battlefield franchise has never really been nor should it ever be a "competitive" shooter. Competitive shooters are what my friends and I call Dumb Shooters. Go play CoD or Overwatch. There's actually plenty of "competitive" games out there.

As someone who's been playing Battlefield since BF 1942, I couldn't agree more.

Although I do often wish my teammates weren't so braindead, I've never understood the desire to morph Battlefield into some kind of eSports franchise. It's never been about eSports, and never should be about that. Battlefield is great as is.

For me when games go too heavily towards a competitive scene is the moment the alienate their core audience. Perhaps EA/ Dice have recognised this and are now focussing on the masses and their core game modes that Battlefield is famous for.

There is also the chance you just need to be patient, all good things come to those who wait.

What games actually do this? Pretty much all games contain casual elements. And I don't see OP suggest the game be balanced entirely around competitive, only that other options be present.

A good example of this would be the ablility to change the tickets, as they would probably have to be a third of what they are now for competitive players (even less since it would be 12v12, but think in percentage terms).

An opportunity to do this would be to have slightly different balancing for Standard and Classic. Many of the Classic settings contain elements which comp players prefer, and added to the list could be no suppression, balanced elites/cavalry (or straight removal), lower tickets for Operations, etc. This would in no way affect the standard game for players who prefer that.

For me when games go too heavily towards a competitive scene is the moment the alienate their core audience. Perhaps EA/ Dice have recognised this and are now focussing on the masses and their core game modes that Battlefield is famous for.

There is also the chance you just need to be patient, all good things come to those who wait.

Couldn't disagree more. In my post I describe CoD, Overwatch and Hearthstone who all have some of the largest competitive bases among all games with a massive player base. Also, the latest BF games haven't even stuck to the "core principles" of the franchise.

CoD is actually a great example. It blew up big time after cod4/ MW2 became the premium game for MLG and has gradually slipped off its own pedestal a victim of its success. Medal of Honour is another one went down the competitive route but failed to captivate the appropriate audience and now the franchise has been put out to pasture. Meanwhile BF1 is the largest commercial success Dice have had with the franchise.

For sure a selection of the smaller competitive game modes would be nice, even if they work on this at the time of a DLC, with design features in mind for said game modes. But it cant take precedent over the core game modes that the majority play day in day out.

CoD is unquestionably a top 10 eSports title today, it's just objective when you take into account the total tournaments, player base and prizes. BF releases always have strong initial sales, and given the trajectory of the industry it's unsurprising. I just hope EA doesn't take back to back releases of theme centric games and makes this the new face of the franchise.

Conquest Small coexisted along side the other game modes without issue, and by no way am I advocating for a total revamp of what DICE is doing. There is clearly a strong yet totally casual fanbase for the bigger maps and what have you. The fact that they are eliminating Conquest Small and adding unattractive game modes like War Pigeons for example shows they are out of touch.

The battlefield franchise has never really been nor should it ever be a "competitive" shooter. Competitive shooters are what my friends and I call Dumb Shooters. Go play CoD or Overwatch. There's actually plenty of "competitive" games out there.

I implore you to read the entirety of my blog if you get the chance. There is a niche competitive base that, in my opinion, can become a lot more due to the uniqueness of what the Battlefield franchise has to offer. Conquest Small gives an outlet for this, but it wasn't included with BF1 at launch. Small, infantry game play on worthless game modes like Domination is not what people are looking for, and yes I would agree that if you want that type of gameplay then the superior options are Overwatch and CoD. BF does vehicles best and can have a place in eSports, as showcased in BC2.

The other side of this is that it is largely on the competitive community to develop things. A game is not competitive simply due to a large purse size, it can be competitive because of the community involved. The absolute best competitive game I have played was Left 4 Dead, and it was never pro even though we were just as good as any of the pro teams in other games.

Also, DICE have created a huge opportunity in that Operations would make a much better competitive mode than Conquest. A major problem with Conquest, at least for spectators, is that a team generally has to gain an advantageous position and hold it. It is a much more static game-mode, whereas Operations requires progression. If you don't keep pushing you lose.

And if they make Squad Operations then both infantry- and full-comp will be on the same page for the mode. (And of course, CQS would still be an option.)

But you are correct about having access to these settings at release.

The issue with what you are saying is that EA/DICE's decision making have crippled any ability for a community to develop like in past games. If you haven't read my entire post I recommend it as I expand on this topic. Here's an excerpt:

The Theory is a cyclical idea based around three key thoughts: Playability compared to casual games, educated yet skillful figureheads to test, play & promote the title, and support from the developer/publisher. While all competitive games in history may not possess all of these factors, nearly every successful and popular one eventually achieves each point. A supportive developer/publisher that puts money into a competitive program will yield players with notoriety to play, and more importantly stream live, the respective title. Conversely, a well-liked game that can easily translate regular causal play to competitive play will naturally have participants who like it enough form a competitive community of their own, as seen in both Bad Company games.

The figureheads have thousands and sometimes millions of followers who will be more enticed to play said game if their favorite streamer is boasting about how good it is. It's a mass-marketing scheme that some publishers, like Blizzard, have perfected down to a T. Just like a celebrity's endorsement of a consumer good or service, streamers put their notoriety behind a game by consistently playing it for their viewers. Along with competitive or "professional" players, if they are regularly playing the game, they are typically enjoying what it has to offer and are passing that enjoyment onto the viewer (except for me, I tend to talk about all the problems with BF games). Additionally, Overwatch, a team-based first person shooter, is hardly the first game to attempt this ever popular model (think Team Fortress 2). Blizzard put a fresh spin on a genre that has not been innovated on by a large studio in recent years, and it paid massive dividends for their bottom line. Similar to Overwatch, Hearthstone is a free-to-play card game that has also gained popularity among many in the "pro" scene. Blizzard has been able to explode into untapped, competitive genres that were otherwise not occupied by previous games among the usual eSports player base. It is not a coincidence that Overwatch and Hearthstone have many players originating from DoTA, League of Legends and Starcraft. Blizzard's uncanny ability to borrow players from many of the competitive titles is driven on the fact that they are in complete sync with their titles' "ambassadors" (despite the overwhelming majority of these people commingling between non-Blizzard titles) and what their player base is looking for in a game, no matter the genre. That is, not only the major aspects of their titles but the support in the communities along side them. It will be fascinating to see what genre they tackle next, as their formula has seemingly proven to be foolproof.

This is the best of all the games out there. That is not saying much.
COD infinte ware sales down 42%
Titanfall 2 sales down 73%
Watchdogs 2 down 80%
Just about all game are down. Producers are putting out crap and gamers spending is showing. Stop paying for crap and maybe we can get some quality games.